I've Been Wanting to Talk to You
by WitchyDoctor
Summary: It's six weeks after the battle with Loki. Clint Barton and Bruce Banner start to get to know one another and fight some bad guys along the way. Friends, no slash. - COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Rating Note:** This story is rated T for some mild profanity and action violence.

* * *

The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier was still scarred from the battle with Loki six weeks prior, but it was functional, patrolling for the moment in the area of the infamous Bermuda Triangle. Two days ago, a marine research ship had disappeared, lost from radio, cell, and satellite contact. It might be nothing, or it might be something. In the wake of recent inter-planetary events, the decision had been made for S.H.I.E.L.D. to check it out.

In his small armory in the bowels of the helicarrier, Clint Barton didn't really give a shit where they were. There was nothing for him to shoot, nothing for him to kill, so no one came looking for him. When he did venture out, some of the looks he got made him regret his decision to show his face. Sure, he'd stood in the circle in New York City, back to back with Rogers, Stark, Thor, and Natasha, even the Hulk. He'd gotten the job done and then some, down to his last arrow. No one disputed that. But, he'd also been the one to fire into the heart of this ship, to start the cascade of events that had almost brought it down, that had led to the death of Phil Coulson and almost killed Natasha - _he'd _almost killed Natasha, with a blade and his bare hands. She kept insisting it hadn't been him. Loki had been in his brain; he'd been _compromised_. It was such a clean, neutral word. _Compromised_. Perhaps Loki had been pulling the strings, but it had been his eyes, his hands, his weapons. If those things weren't him, weren't Hawkeye, then what was?

With a small growl, he tossed aside the arrow he'd been working on. They'd put him through a battery of scans and tests for three weeks, trying to discover exactly what Loki's staff had done to him and Erik Selvig, so that next time, if there _was _a next time, they could neutralize it. Then... nothing. There was no mission for him, and "vacation" was not in his vocabulary. He had retreated down here to work, to replenish his supply of arrows. At least it felt like forward momentum, creating rather than destroying. No doubt they were still lab-ratting him, keeping an eye on his movements and mental status. Selvig had been sent to a research facility to work on better understanding the wormhole that Loki had opened. Even without the tesseract itself, which had been sent away from Earth with Thor, there was all kinds of data, or so the doctor had enthused. _Something _to do...

A soft "ahem" came from just outside the half-open door, along with a soft rap on the metal door frame. Clint looked up to see Bruce Banner standing there. Had he been waiting? When their gazes met, there was an unspoken request to enter from the other man. Despite that creeping feeling of being watched and examined he nodded, turning on the high stool he was sitting on so that he faced his visitor.

Stepping into the room, Banner looked more or less like he always did, at least few times Clint had seen him in the past few weeks: vaguely rumpled, posture slightly rounded, hands pushed down into his pockets. He wasn't a large man, physically speaking. Intellectually, that was a different matter entirely. Clint was no dummy himself, but he'd dropped out of school when he'd run away from the orphanage, picking up the things he knew in a mostly piecemeal way since then. He'd overheard that Banner had gone toe to toe with Stark in a battle of words and come out more or less even with the cocky billionaire-genius-whatever. He was curious about the man, and the "other guy"… and why either one would be seeking him out.

"Interesting..." Bruce said, picking up Clint's discarded arrow from the worktop and holding it by the shaft, gently probing the tip with one finger. "What does this one do?"

"Explosive tip," Clint said huskily.

"Oh..." Bruce retracted his hand, but continued to peer intently at the blunt, cylindrical metal tip, spinning the shaft in a slow circle. "I understand you've made several novel innovations to your arrows, Mr. Barton. A master of your craft. Unparalleled."

"Yes."

There was no point in false modesty, at least where his archery was concerned. Whatever else he might or might not know, might or might not have done, that was a proven fact.

Bruce pursed his lips and nodded, then laid the arrow down and turned his softly inquiring eyes onto Clint. "I've been wanting to talk to you."


	2. Chapter 2

Clint breathed in deeply, held the breath for second, then let it escape slowly through his nose in a long exhale. Rogers, Stark, Thor, and Natasha were all gone on other business. It was just him and Banner left from that day. Coincidence? He gave a shrug and gestured around, like it was nothing. "All right. We're here."

After a short pause, Bruce smiled wryly and ran a hand through his wavy, greying dark hair, rumpling it more. "So... I used one of the computer tricks Tony left behind to take a look at your files. Your medical evaluations, I mean. Nothing else."

Tony Stark had hacked the helicarrier's computers the first day he'd been brought aboard, and during the security rebuild he'd made sure to add a couple convenient back doors for himself, which he'd subsequently made available to his newfound partner-in-science. Of course, one of the reasons for that rebuild had been Clint's attack on the system. It had been shown to be vulnerable to a double agent or someone who had been compromised. While he wasn't entirely sure about the overarching ethics, Bruce had decided that expediency was called for in this case; the ends justified the means.

"I know a bit about brain scans." He tapped his temple lightly with one forefinger. "For a man so clearly unique, yours are really boring. All of them. Like a textbook."

Clint's head tilted slightly to the right and he blinked, trying to parse the meaning and subtext of Banner's words. What was he getting at? The only inflection in his voice was the barest thread of dry sarcasm as he said, "Okay. Thanks."

If the recalcitrant archer was trying Banner's patience at all, the man didn't show it. There was another pause as he seemed to consider what to say next. "Well, okay. That wasn't wholly honest. Your visual cortex isn't really standard issue, and I imagine an MRI of you in action would be quite exceptional. But, the point is, the before and the after pictures are the same. It's only you. Nobody else."

Closing his eyes, Clint shook his head. "You don't understand-"

He cut himself off, sensing rather than actually seeing the shift in Banner's demeanor. When he opened his eyes, the other man's eyebrow was cocked up in surprise, or maybe challenge. And here he'd been thinking he couldn't _possibly _feel more assy. Well, he should learn never to count anything out. Improbable wasn't the same as impossible.

"Which part?" Bruce asked. "The pain of changing? The utterly helpless feeling of having your body act against your will while you stand by, mute and chained and unable to stop it? The death and destruction left behind?"

Clint turned his head, focusing on the tools hanging in orderly rows on the wall. He couldn't meet that penetrating gaze. However, he couldn't shut his ears as Banner continued to speak in his level, reasoned voice.

"You're right, Mr. Barton. I don't know what it was like for you. It would be presumptuous for me to claim I do."

Bruce recalled his own little chat with Tony Stark, his own realizations about the nature of duality, before all hell had broken loose with Loki - before the _other _guy had broken loose and nearly destroyed the ship. If nothing else, he and Clint Barton rightfully shared that piece of guilt between them. "So why don't you tell me?"

"I thought your name was Dr. Bruce, not Dr. Phil," Clint quipped reflexively, defensively, only to be painfully gut-punched by his own poor choice of words. Phil. Coulson. Fuck it, there was nowhere to turn, and he hated that sense of being trapped.

Again, Banner seemed unperturbed by the jab. The glint in his eye was more mischievous than angry as he offered. "Well... I can't do much about the hair, and I'm not as man-pretty as Thor, but you could picture me in a black catsuit if it would help."

The sound that came out of Clint was almost more of a cough than a laugh, a short, sharp, scoffing bark mostly through his nose. Then, on the next breath, his mouth opened and he let out another, more recognizable chuckle. It was just so... there was no way not to laugh. The image Banner had suggested had popped immediately into his head, in all its ridiculous glory. Hell, he hadn't even told Natasha everything: a few words, in the moments after he'd come to in the helicarrier as himself, overwhelmed by relief and gratitude. Then they'd been on the jet and fighting in New York. Afterward, reality had come crashing down more heavily than the Chitauri warships had rained down on the city. She hadn't pushed, had given him space, like always. Maybe it had been too much this time. In any case, Banner had stepped in and seemed to have him pegged.

"I'll think about it," he conceded, mostly meaning it.

Bruce nodded. "All right. That's good." He nodded again, the gesture seeming to be for himself more than for Clint's benefit. "For now, Mr. Barton, perhaps you could show me some more of your work."

Turning back toward his bench, Clint reached for one of the arrows that were lined up neatly on his right side. Sonic tip, as good a place as any to start. "Just call me Clint, okay?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Agent Barton and Dr. Banner to the bridge."

The tinny voice came from a concealed speaker somewhere in the wall. Both men looked a bit surprised, but for somewhat different reasons. Wordlessly, Bruce followed Clint's unerring path through the belowdecks maze. When they emerged into the bright command space, lit by its large viewing windows, Nick Fury stood on his elevated platform overlooking the rows of technicians, feet spread, hands clasped behind his back. A viewscreen on the command center wall to Fury's right showed real-time footage of a boat. It was sitting motionless in a smooth expanse of aquamarine ocean, or so Clint judged, since he couldn't see any bow waves or trailing wake, only the ripple pattern caused by the helicarrier's downdraft. There was also no crew movement on the deck. Then Fury started speaking.

"That's the research vessel _Atlacamani_. A bunch of Ph.D. marine biologists and grad students were studying the barrier reef at Andros, the biggest island in the Bahamas. For three weeks they were in daily contact with the AUTEC naval base and some of the local conservationists. Two days ago, she pulled up anchor and took off, no explanation. She's two hundred miles from Andros now, on an almost straight line toward Bermuda."

Fury turned to face the newly-arrived duo, pleased to see what seemed to be a look of interest on Barton's face. "Eighty meters long, twenty-five hundred tons, twin diesel engines with battery backup, cabin space for thirty-eight passengers and crew."

At his signal, the display split to show the live imagery side-by-side with an older photograph. The tri-level superstructure, painted white with contrasting yellow and orange trim, was topped by communications antennas, a variety of scientific instrumentation, and navigation sensors. The hull was deep blue. Much of the aft deck was taken up by a crane, but the pointed foredeck provided a reasonably open expanse of space for activity or landing. Clint's eyes were darting from point to point, his brain picking out the likely location of the bridge, formulating angles of assault.

_The stolen aircraft closed in on the helicarrier. Hawkeye was ready, eager. The plan he had helped create was maximally efficient, even elegant to someone who understood such things. Human lives were not a significant factor, either the men with him or those he would face. Only one life mattered - not his own, at least not once his mission was accomplished. From elegance would spring chaos. That simplified matters greatly... _

"Any sign of the people?" he asked, glancing at Banner and then looking to Fury.

The first answer was a headshake. "There are no signs of anything living aboard."

Banner noticed that Fury had said _anything_, not _anyone_. Bermuda Triangle, perhaps that was appropriate. As a child, he'd read books about ghosts and unexplained events, giving himself a scare under the covers before he'd gotten old enough to poke logical holes in the stories. The ones that had disturbed him the most were those where people vanished: Roanoke Island, or the _Mary Celeste_. The latter was a nineteenth century merchant ship that had been found drifting and deserted in the Atlantic, one lifeboat and a few papers gone, but nearly everything else oddly in place. Yes, there were several clearly logical explanations and scenarios, but he could imagine the eerie, soft creaking of the empty wooden ship and the snap of her sails as she bobbed alone. The _Atlacamani_ was steel, so she would not sound anything like that, but still...

"Lifeboats?" he asked.

"All in place," Fury answered. There was a pause, and he added, "Agent Barton, I want you to go down for a recon. Pick four agents as backup. Dr. Banner, you'll go as well. If it's clear, you'll check out the computers and any other equipment for something to explain what's happening. Get changed and get your gear. Fifteen minutes."

_The computers were the key; they were the eyes, ears, nerves, and brains of the ship. None of the skills of the men and women on board would matter if she were plunging from the sky. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been trying to harness the power of the tesseract for a brighter future. That was the claim. Instead, Loki would loose the power of darkness in their midst. Anger and fear. Weakness and doubt..._

"Yes, sir," Clint said. Forward momentum.


	4. Chapter 4

The quinjet approached the research boat from the front and hovered thirty feet over the open space at the bow. Clint stepped off the jet's lowered rear ramp and fast-roped to the deck, his boots landing with a soft thud on the metal plates. He released quickly and stepped aside so that two agents could follow him, pulling his pistol to establish cover while they descended. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of his preferred bow and arrows would be too limited by the narrow ship's corridors and compact rooms, so they were waiting above, like Dr. Banner.

"Make a round of the decks and then head up to the bridge. I'm going to the labs and quarters. Anything suspicious, you speak up, even if it's just a gut feeling," he instructed the other men. If they found the navigation computer powered-up, they would jack in so the helicarrier could download the data. If not, they would try to get it started or see whether it could be removed entirely for transport back to the helicarrier.

As the men moved off, Clint gave the pilot a thumbs-up. The jet turned away, hovering nearby to provide support or extraction, depending on what his team found. Reaching into a pocket, he took out a pair of goggles and slid them on. They would allow the scientist in the hovering jet to see everything he was seeing. With luck, Banner could simply talk him through anything that needed to be done, rather than having to come down himself.

_The cold air at the carrier's high altitude was thin, and the tang of smoke from the engine he had sabotaged was acrid in his nostrils. Confidently he strode down the jet's rear ramp, bow in hand. He knew every corridor in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s warship, both those meant for people and the improvised passages in the ceilings and floors. For practice, he and Natasha had tracked one another through the maze, learning all the nooks and crannies. Natasha... no, she didn't matter. Nothing would get in the way of where he was going and what he was meant to do..._

He'd begun to sweat in the hot Caribbean sun as soon as he'd hit the deck, and it got worse once he stepped into the stifling interior of the boat. If there was air conditioning, it had been turned off for at least several hours. A faint scent of rotting food tainted the air, but he smelled no human decomposition. That was both good and bad. If they found the crew and passengers dead, the mystery might be solved fairly quickly. They were close to several major shipping routes and pirates sometimes took boats in this area, using the Bermuda Triangle legend as a cover. Of course, he wasn't sure how desirable a bunch of scientists and their data might be to that kind of predator, but it wasn't his job to ask those kinds of questions.

The galley tables held abandoned plates of food, drinks in plastic cups, and a powered-down iPad. The warm refrigerator was full of spoiling supplies and there was a congealed pool of spaghetti sauce dumped on the floor, a metal saucepan beside it. Clint wrinkled his nose and moved on. Whatever happened, they seemed to have been interrupted in the middle of normal activities. His inspection of the small cabins confirmed that. Each room had a twin bunk over built-in drawers, a shelf-like desk, and a chair. Pairs of rooms shared bathrooms outfitted with shower stalls, toilets, and tiny sinks. Personal belongings had tumbled to the floor in many of the rooms and some beds were unmade. He flipped through a spiral-bound notebook on one desk, finding what appeared to be scientific notes. Someone had splattered water on the top page; the ink had blurred in a few places. There was no noise other than his own footsteps and breath against a background of soft creaks and lapping water.

"Barton, this is Reynolds. All the computers and navigation gear up here on the bridge have been smashed to holy hell, and I swear it looks like they poured salt water on the wreckage," a voice said in his ear. "That would short out anything left. No way we can try a restart."

Clint wiped a forearm across his sweating forehead, then dried his palms off on the seat of his pants. It had to be a hundred degrees inside the passenger cabins. "See if there's anything at all you can salvage. Even if they're damaged, the techs can get something from the hard drives. Quarters are clear. I'm heading to the labs."

"Copy," Reynolds said, and then nothing.

If the rooms had been only a bit tumbled, the labs were a disaster. Computers, equipment, and papers were scattered everywhere. Clint stepped slowly and carefully among the debris, trying to stick to bare spaces. Even so, his boots crunched on broken glass. Then he saw the blood. It was smeared on the edge of a stainless-steel worktable, with a small pool on the floor below, dry and rusty-looking. There was something else about the lab space that was bothering him, something missing besides people. He turned in a slow circle, looking around at the debris with brows furrowed.

"Barton! Intruders, coming up over the sides - right out of the damn water, man!"

Clint pivoted and ran for the stairs to the main deck. Why the hell hadn't the pilot given any warning? He should have seen another boat or a plane coming from miles away. Was it a sub?

"How many?" he asked as he pounded up the stairs two at a time and then down the corridor toward the front of the boat. "I need a sitrep. How many men and where are they exactly."

"They're not men," he heard. It was Banner's voice, oddly calm.

At the moment, Clint would have given every cent he had for his bow. He was very proficient with the pistol, but it was just a tool in his hand, not an extension of his body. Pausing briefly at the door, he peered out to gauge what he was up against. He could see five of them, large and densely muscled and... blue. Blue?

A burst of machine-gun fire from the jet's powerful gun filled the air with sound, and the creatures (what else could he call them?) in his line of sight were cut down. Clint ducked to shield himself from the ricochets off the metal decking. The jet pivoted and the two agents he'd left aboard roped down, taking cover as soon as they were on their own two feet. Then he could see Banner in the opening.

"Keep the deck clear, I'm coming down," Bruce said - just before he jumped. Clint's mouth fell open as he watched the mild doctor turn into the _other guy_... who was about to land on a boat at sea.

Oh, crap…


	5. Chapter 5

The air around Clint seemed silent and expectant for about a second and a half, like a breath waiting to be exhaled. Then there was a heavy, metallic 'THOOMP' that shook the boat from bow to stern. The deck pitched suddenly under his feet, throwing him into the wall. He'd seen the Hulk in action in New York, and he had no idea what kind of crazy physics or chemistry or anything else governed Banner's alter-ego, but it didn't seem to be the same rules that bound the rest of them to this earth. In a giant sea of earth and concrete, it wasn't a huge concern. In a sea of... well, actual _sea_, it might be critically important.

"Reynolds, salvage whatever you guys can from the bridge in the next two minutes and get up top for extraction. We'll cover you."

There was a "copy" from the agents, and another from the pilot. Two minutes was an eternity in a combat situation, but they needed to come away from this with _something_. Clint refused to let his first mission after New York - after _Loki _- to be a failure. Fury was depending on him, as were the families of all the missing people. He heard the jet's gun fire again, followed by the Hulk's bellowing roar. The primal sound reverberated through him, feeling like the harsh grating of shattered glass and broken ribs. It had to scare whatever the hell those blue things were; it sure as hell scared him. Banner better be inside there somewhere, or they were all screwed.

_He was striding down the catwalk, his mission almost accomplished - all but one thing. Loki and the sceptre needed to be on the jet, needed to be free for the future to come to its fruition. But then she was there. Natasha. Despite their long history, he wasn't worried. He knew her, knew her moves, knew her thoughts. She didn't know him, not the man he was now. He had confessed everything to Loki and been given absolution for his weakness. She was nothing to him. Nothing. He would not fail the one who had given him such noble purpose... _

Clint burst from the cover of the hallway, pistol raised defensively as he assessed the situation. He could see at least twenty of the blue creatures, not counting the carcasses on the deck. The blood pooling around them was dark red, which somehow surprised him. As he watched, the Hulk backhanded a swath of five or six creatures as they tried to stab at him with tridents, bowling them over and scattering them like toys. Tridents? Six weeks ago it was aliens, and now they were suddenly in _Clash of the Titans_. Great.

"Barton!"

He looked and saw one of his fellow agents with a familiar case. Hot _damn_! As he moved, one of the creatures charged him. Reflexively he fired off a tight, three-round burst into its chest. It fell, so presumably its anatomy included some vital organ where a human heart would be. The gill-slits in the thing's neck fluttered and stopped, but Clint was already on the move again. He ducked behind a steel locker, then nodded at his fellow agent, who pushed the case across the rough metal deck toward him.

The Hulk let out another ear-shattering bellow and the boat rocked again, shifting the sliding case away from its original trajectory and sending it toward the rail. Clint dove, grabbed at the handle, then rolled over onto his back to shoot another of the blue creatures right between the eyes. It fell on heavily him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Though a few inches shorter than him, it was well-muscled and had a rubbery density, much more than a man of the same size. His ribs were going to be hating that later. A second and third attacker sprouted holes and fell, courtesy of his fellow agents.

With his bow, Clint quickly put down several of the creatures around the Hulk, who was busy ripping his way out of a net they'd somehow managed to throw over him. He also stopped a dozen who were trying to ascend the superstructure toward the bridge, despite his unsteady footing. Each meaty thunk was a reassurance. In his earpiece, he heard Reynolds call for the jet, which circled over the upper tier of the superstructure. The agent and his partner hooked onto the lowered ropes. As they started their ascent, Clint told the other two to go and fired a tear gas arrow into a cluster of creatures to cover their retreat. Thankfully, they didn't seem to like it any more than people, and most of them made an awkward run for the railing, flopping over it into the sea.

That first break in the enemy lines seemed to be a signal of some kind for the rest of the force to follow. The deck was strewn with bodies and slippery with blood, and Clint had a wound in his leg from a trident's tine. Not content to let his tormentors simply escape, the Hulk chased after them, the ship shuddering beneath his footsteps. He grabbed two before they could make the safety of the water and slapped them repeatedly against the deck. They fared somewhat less well than Loki in that regard, and he flung the shattered carcasses into the sanctuary they'd been trying to reach. Trying to take one of them alive was probably too much to ask, Clint thought, but there would be bodies for the science guys to examine. He had no idea how to convey to the furious Hulk that it was time to go, or that maybe it was time for Banner to come back. Hopefully he'd catch on.


	6. Chapter 6

As the two agents made their way up top for retrieval, Clint was torn. Now that the deck was clear of the mysterious aggressors, he ought to be close on their heels so the jet didn't have to wait any longer than necessary. They had no way of knowing whether tridents were the only method of attack the blue creatures had up their sleeves... metaphorically speaking. While they'd been humanoid in appearance, none had been wearing clothes, only a loin-cloth sort of wrapping around their hips. He hesitated to call them mermaids - mermen? - even if that was the first thing that came to mind.

"Banner!" he called out to the green behemoth, who was still stalking around the deck with shuddering bangs and emitting a deep growl that made the fine hairs on the back of Clint's neck stand up. He noticed in that moment that the creature's eyes looked like the scientist's, but they were missing the spark of warmth and compassion the other man had shown him. He had to suppress a reflex to ready his bow in case he needed to defend himself.

"Bruce!" he added, hoping to catch the attention of the man inside. Was he really in there, just waiting to return?

The boat gave a sudden lurch. Clint bobbled slightly on his wounded leg and readjusted his footing. A low rumble and protesting groan of metal rose from somewhere below him. Quickly he strode over to the rail and looked down to see the water below churning and thrashing, as if they were traveling at high speed, but they weren't. Or were they? The deck was moving, just not forward. It was starting to rotate in a circle, like a paper boat caught in the outer edges of a whirlpool. The movement was sluggish at the moment, but somehow the archer didn't expect it to stay that way.

"Bruce, we have to go!" he tried again.

The boat was picking up speed. The horizon was completely empty, and without a fixed point to spot during the rotation Clint was getting dizzy. The jet hovered, trying to match velocity as the second pair of agents ascended to the open rear ramp, but the pilot was having a difficult time maintaining it.

"Barton, you need to get your ass in the open for pick-up," the pilot said. "There's one hell of a vortex opening up under that boat."

As if on cue, the boat gave a sickening, tearing metallic screech from deep inside herself. The Hulk answered by tearing out the metal locker Clint had used for cover earlier during the fight and tossing it overboard. One of the navigation antennas fell from the top of the boat, crashing down the side and spearing into the water. The archer understood then that the jet wouldn't approach anywhere near Banner's alter ego while he was seemingly on a rampage. In not too much longer the pilot wouldn't have _any_ safe vector of approach. It went against Clint's nature to abandon a teammate, but unlike Thor, he didn't have the strength to take on the Hulk and walk away.

_His arrow flew straight and true, as it usually did. He couldn't hear the soft, metallic pop as it found its hold in the helicarrier's hull, but everyone heard the explosion as its charge went off. Metal screeched as the giant turbine ground to a halt, greasy black smoke belching forth. He knew the bridge would be full of alarms now. Everyone would be paying attention to the bleeding wound as the ship began to sink from the sky and the beast began gutting her from within; it would give him time to strike the crippling blow..._

"Bruce! Last ride home!" Clint called out as he ran for the stairs. The boat was sinking beneath their feet, drawn down by the whirlpool, the massive forces tearing it apart on its descent. The metal treads were damp from the spray and slick beneath his boots. He couldn't tell whether the wetness on his pant leg was water or blood. It didn't matter. The deck was tilting now and he grabbed a handrail to round a corner, his hand slipping and his hip banging hard. Halfway up. The water was rising, or more properly the boat was sinking into the vortex, faster than he could climb. He wouldn't make it.

The jet appeared to his side and slightly above him, hovering barely over the chopping waves. He quickly clicked the selector on his bow and drew an arrow, aiming with instinct as much as eye. The head penetrated the jet's hull, grapples spreading out inside to hold it in place. The line trailing back to Clint from the arrow's shaft looked impossibly thin, but it would hold ten of him. He quickly hooked himself on, swung a leg over the rail, and yelled, "Pull up, now!"

He leapt free, finding himself dangling for a moment in thin air before slamming forcefully into the vortex wall. It felt more solid than brick, and the impact knocked his breath from his lungs. Then he was underwater, line pulled taut, his bow torn from his grasp. He was unable to see or breathe. Both hands flailed, seeking the elusive lifeline. His body gasped desperately for oxygen, but he inhaled only a burning lungful of seawater.

_Loki's grip on his wrist was like iron, inhumanly strong. The point of the sceptre approached his chest. He braced for the inevitable pain of it penetrating his skin, driving through muscle and bone, into his heart... but it stopped, the tip touching his sternum. He barely felt it, until the sensation of being plunged into cold water washed over him. It crept higher and higher until he was submerged, drowning. His eyes were open and he could see, the world blurred and blue, flailing hands finding no purchase, nothing to grab onto to pull himself free of it. Except, his hands weren't flailing at all. They were calmly sliding his pistol into its holster, and when he opened his mouth to scream in protest, nothing came out... _

When he suddenly burst free of the water, spinning wildly at the end of the line, he spasmed and coughed. The line was pulling him at his waist, and half of what he got out seemed to just run back in his nose and mouth. His grasping fingers finally gained a hold and he pulled himself upright. The boat was completely below the plane of the water now, the vortex starting to collapse in on itself as the jet lifted the rest of them away. Clint couldn't see the Hulk or Banner anywhere. Then he couldn't see anything at all.


	7. Epilogue

The helicarrier was docked in the Bahamas while Nick Fury dealt with the U.S. Navy and the Bahamian government. The crew was given an opportunity for shore leave; a few holdouts had been told they'd be knocked unconscious and physically removed to the beach if they refused. Thus, Clint found himself settled on the patio outside a small rented bungalow, one of a private group that had been reserved for S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. He was stretched out on a chaise, wearing only board shorts and sunglasses. There was a bandage on his thigh and a purplish-blue swath of bruising on his left side over his ribs. The edges were fading to a sickly yellow-green and stippled with red. Smaller bruises of various shades and sizes decorated other parts of his body, although that was certainly nothing new. His eyes, one of which was puffy and blackened, were closed behind the dark lenses of his Oakleys. However, he could hear everything going on around him, and there was a pistol hidden under the beach towel on the table beside him.

Footsteps, familiar ones; a soft thud on the wooden table beside him; the creak of the second chair. He turned his head and opened his eyes to see an ice-cold beer, the bottle beaded and dripping. Beyond it was Bruce Banner, his roommate during this enforced inactivity, looking cool and touristy in sand-colored linen trousers and a pastel purple shirt. His skin was lightly tanned and his hair was rumpled from a Panama hat, which was also sitting on the table.

They'd located Banner on San Salvador Island two days after the mission. Apparently, the Hulk was a better swimmer than anyone had suspected. Maybe it was his fierce survival instinct - the nature of the beast. The man hadn't elaborated, and as far as Clint knew, no one had pressed the issue. Secretly, he imagined the Hulk punching a shark right in the face like he'd done to that alien snake-ship in New York. The doctor had been waiting for them on the beach: naked, sunburned, and famished. Clint had logged many exhausting hours in a quinjet after his wounds had been treated, using the excuse that he didn't consider his mission to be over until _all _his men were accounted for. Fury had quickly agreed, which shut down anyone else's objections. He'd led the spiral-search pattern from the coordinates where the research ship had sunk, dreading the sight of a floating green body or, even worse, a smaller pale one. With an incredible sense of relief, he'd been the one to pick up their missing man once he'd been found. Some people assumed that his profession meant he didn't care about people, but that wasn't true, especially now.

"Thanks," he said, rolling to the side and reaching for the bottle, wincing a little at the tug on his battered ribs. That wet blue bastard had been heavy. Unfortunately, none of the bodies had been recovered, so exactly who or what their attackers might be and the fate of the scientists remained a mystery. By contrast, the beer was easily identifiable. It was Kalik, a Bahamian brand, definitely a beach brew: light, bittersweet, with a hint of lime that went down easily in the hot tropical weather.

"Not joining me?" he asked after he swallowed.

Bruce shook his head. "The other guy's not too fond of it."

Clint nodded, taking another long pull before putting the bottle back on the table. He let his empty hands rest on the wooden arms of the chaise, his fingers curled around the ends. Both palms had healing rope burns that itched.

"I've been wanting to talk to you," he said.

"Yeah?" Banner replied casually, eyes still on the water.

"You said in New York that you're always angry..."

"Yes, I did."

Banner didn't seem offended, so Clint continued. "You don't seem angry."

"Neither do you."

A silence fell between them for a while, against the backdrop of waves and distant voices. Both men looked at the ocean rather than at one another, each partly lost in his own thoughts and partly girding himself for the next foray. Bruce spoke first.

"In the beginning, I tried to fight it. I thought if I could keep calm, get stronger, I could beat it. Beat _him_. I studied medicine, all kinds of alternative theories, looking for a way to purge him, cut him out, whatever it took to be _myself _again," he explained. "In the beginning, when he took over, I wouldn't remember what happened. I'd just wake up somewhere strange, wondering what I'd done and who I'd hurt."

Clint had many questions, but he knew better than to interrupt the other man now. There was an odd, almost-wistful smile on Banner' face as he continued his story. "Can you imagine, trying to get _stronger _than him? It was a vicious circle. Every time something went wrong, every time I _failed_, it made me angrier. That fueled the monster. _He _got stronger. Give and take, back and forth. He _is _a monster... but then again, so are you and I, if you look at it the right way."

There was no possible response to that but to nod. It was the truth. When Banner didn't start up again immediately, Clint took that as his turn to speak. "I remember it all..."

He swallowed, his throat getting thick and tight, making his voice come out gruff. "Not at first. Getting hit on the head on the carrier, going through that window in New York... concussion, shock, adrenaline. Things started coming back a couple days later. Flashes and chunks. Smells. Colors. Sounds. Bits of things I said. Things I did."

It was Bruce's turn to nod and wait. Journeys took time. They had that right now. As much as he felt a kinship to Tony via their shared interest in all things science-y, he had a different connection with Clint, who was the sort of man he might never have met at all if it wasn't for the other guy. His time in India had given him different notions about the workings of universe, beyond science, and he was willing to see where this went.

"They asked me a thousand questions. I read reports, watched videos, found the names of the dead agents. It's possible some memories are just stories I filled in for myself. It's better than holes. I don't know. Other things, I think they _have _to be real."

Loki's penetrating eyes; the way it felt to have the free will, his very _soul_, pulled out of him and then put back in, dark and twisted. Those couldn't be an invention of his own imagination. In his mind, he simply wasn't that creative.

"Natasha keeps saying it wasn't me-"

"She's wrong," Bruce interrupted, decisively but not harshly. He held up a hand, as if he thought Clint might protest. "I know you two are very close and I don't want to step on that. You can choose to believe what I'm going to tell you or not, but I think it's the truth. The other guy, the one who did all those things you regret, he's inside you forever because he was there to start with. You need to realize and accept that he's not all that different from the man you believe you are. If you look deeply, with your eyes open, you might find something you _like _about him... even if you can't admit it to anyone else. Even _her_. Natasha has her own demons."

Clint looked at Bruce, understanding what had been said, but also trying to discern meaning between and beneath the blunt words. A pair of warm, earnest brown eyes, holding neither pity nor contempt, looked back at him. Quietly, he asked, "You don't want the _other guy _gone anymore?"

"Oh, I didn't say that," Bruce answered. "But I can't see how that will ever happen. He's in me, but now I'm also in him. How do I take him out without losing any of myself in the process?"

They lapsed into silence again for close to thirty minutes. Clint reflected on Banner's advice, but also on something that had occurred to him earlier that morning. None of the agents he'd chosen for the mission had refused to work with him or questioned his orders. Hell, they'd covered his back during the battle, which would have been a perfect chance to get rid of him without blame. He didn't expect everyone to trust him fully overnight, but it was progress.

"I have one more thing," Clint said as he picked up his beer again. It had gotten warm, but he took a sip anyway, then asked, "You're like some kind of physics genius, right?"

Bruce smiled wryly and nodded. "_Like_ one? Sure."

"Do you think you could use all that know-how to figure out something so I don't get an eyeful of your junk every time you switch back from the other guy to you-guy?" Clint said, smirking as he raised the bottle to his lips again. "I like you and all, but _damn_."

There was no choice but to laugh. It felt good, actually, and Bruce relaxed with a smile on his face. "I'll get right on it when we get back to the carrier."

Clint was also smiling as he placed his now-empty bottle on the table and closed his eyes. "There's a three-hundred-fifty pound dude in a Speedo down the beach that way," he gestured vaguely to their left. "Whatever that thing's made out of has to be a good place to start..."

* * *

**Author Note: **I know I glossed over Bruce's rescue a bit. I was eager to get to the epilogue. I doubt this will be my last Bruce/Clint story, since there is a hanging mystery to solve. The blue baddies are a classic Marvel race I'd like to explore more.

**Acknowledgements:** Thank you to everyone who put this story on alert, made this story a favorite, submitted a review for this story, and/or put me on author alert because of this story. I made a list, but I didn't want to post it in case I accidentally left someone off :)


End file.
